A densely packed conclusion to an SF/fantasy series of vast ambition and scale.
In this SF/fantasy novel, two brothers from a legendary lineage of heroes must unite with a mythic creature and summon awesome powers to confront a universe-devouring entity.
Carlton concludes the fantasy saga started in The Coming of Schades (2023) with this volume. Nick Emerson is 14 and his younger brother, Frank, is 9—not that one would know from looking at the pair. Nick now has the physiology of an adult man, and telepathic-empath Frank, who appears to be a teenager, has literally absorbed an immortal named Vahl. These are just two of the supernatural events that have befallen the brothers since receiving a revelation from Harry Armstrong, the custodian of their school: The close siblings, who hail from a tragedy-scarred, fatherless family, are actually descendants and avatars of Oemir, a legendary Celtic hero from a lineage of champions spanning the multiverse. It seems that everything, everywhere was initially composed of 13 universes that were once balanced in harmony; now, all but two of these universes have been devoured by the “living dark,” also called firdur, a malevolent force hostile to all life and light that gains power as it spreads its void. A few species of beings, chiefly the sinister “schades,” have allied themselves with the living dark. That leaves a badly diminished line of heroes, in addition to a plethora of creatures once thought to be mythical (including godlike dragons, wyverns, the virtually immortal Sidhe, centaurs, and cyclopses) as the last hope for existence against the threat of the living nothingness. Nick and Frank, due to their shared soul, have the ability to cross the “curtain” between worlds, feel the other’s sensations, and enter their sister universe to rally Sidhe and other inhabitants of a strategically important world called Aderyn against the living dark. Back on Earth, Nick and Frank and their widely scattered associates face up to their destinies as police investigate a deadly attack on Harry (tied to a corrupt pastor caught up in human trafficking).
There are echoes here of Susan Cooper’s fondly remembered Dark Is Rising series of YA novels commenced in 1965, though Carlton’s playbook reflects a more contemporary American sensibility that blends elements of urban fantasy and LGBTQ+ acceptance (Nick is bisexual). The author effectively blends SF elements (DNA double-helixes, quantum physics) with fantastical magic (“Everything, magic, spells, wards, all of it, it’s just harmonics and physics, it’s just the ways of energy and nature, there’s no good or evil inherent in any of it, it’s all about the intention”). Carlton includes quotes and shoutouts to other popular SF and fantasy franchises, including Tolkien’s Middle Earth and the Harry Potter universe, but rarely to the point that this becomes campy or tiresome. The reader ricochets between an elsewhere where a dragon the size of Africa can forge planets and stars and a relatively mundane Earth replete with bullies, police detectives, same-sex boyfriends, and plenty of swearing—it’s a wild ride, especially as the major characters in this expansive cast ensemble weave in and out of their various incarnations.
A densely packed conclusion to an SF/fantasy series of vast ambition and scale.Pub Date: Dec. 25, 2024
ISBN: 9780983292791
Page Count: 640
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.
Using mystery and romance elements in a nonlinear narrative, SenLinYu’s debut is a doorstopper of a fantasy that follows a woman with missing memories as she navigates through a war-torn realm in search of herself.
Helena Marino is a talented young healer living in Paladia—the “Shining City”—who has been thrust into a brutal war against an all-powerful necromancer and his army of Undying, loyal henchmen with immortal bodies, and necrothralls, reanimated automatons. When Helena is awakened from stasis, a prisoner of the necromancer’s forces, she has no idea how long she has been incarcerated—or the status of the war. She soon finds herself a personal prisoner of Kaine Ferron, the High Necromancer’s “monster” psychopath who has sadistically killed hundreds for his master. Ordered to recover Helena’s buried memories by any means necessary, the two polar opposites—Helena and Kaine, healer and killer—end up discovering much more as they begin to understand each other through shared trauma. While necromancy is an oft-trod subject in fantasy novels, the author gives it a fresh feel—in large part because of their superb worldbuilding coupled with unforgettable imagery throughout: “[The necromancer] lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him…[He] extended his decrepit right hand, overlarge with fingers jointed like spider legs.” Another noteworthy element is the complex dynamic between Helena and Kaine. To say that these two characters shared the gamut of intense emotions would be a vast understatement. Readers will come for the fantasy and stay for the romance.
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780593972700
Page Count: 1040
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
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